If I Were Trapped In An Elevator With A Pregnant Woman

If I were trapped in an elevator with a pregnant woman, well, we’d both pretty much be screwed.

For one, contrary to popular belief, no matter how many times I have seen people help pregnant women give birth in a trapped elevator on shows ranging from ER to Emergency to a myriad of sitcoms — I still have NO damn idea what to do. All I can figure out, from watching said birthing programs is that as the birthER (not the birthEE), you must follow these guidelines:

1. Say, “Stay calm, this will all be over soon.” 2. Get the woman on her back, spread her legs. 3. Have someone rip up strips of clothing. 4. Find a hot, wet towel somewhere. 5. Put both hands together, like you’re a QB ready for the ball snap. 6. Say, “Stay calm, we’re almost there.” 7. Say, “I see the head,” even when you don’t. 8. Say, “Here it comes! It’s a beautiful baby ____ (insert choice here)!” 9. Let the woman hold her new child.

Yet the problem is, based on such detailed step-by-step birthing instructions which I have gleaned from mainstream television programs — I still have no damn idea of what I should do. Really, I’m totally stifled when it comes to this situation.

Keeping that in mind, if I were trapped in an elevator with a pregnant woman, and it was only me and her, I would go through this (very detailed) step of instructions:

1. Find the emergency phone. 2. Pick it up. 3. Yell into it something like, “Ohgodpleasehelpmeohgodpleasehelp!” 4. Panic. 5. Sweat profusely. 6. Say, “Can you keep your legs closed?”

Then again, I might try to escape on my own out the top hatch in the elevator so I could scale my way up to the next available floor via the strong-as-nails elevator cable. I figure, the farther away I could get from the “ticking time bomb” (i.e. baby), the more relaxed I would become, giving me the time to really think through what I would need to do in getting help to the now-solo-trapped pregnant woman in the elevator.

Knowing me, of course, I would probably slip off the cable, fall to my death, and she’d have to give birth all by herself.

But, you know — if she did, all she’d have to do is to refer to my first set of instructions, as gleaned by watching national television programmes — which, at the minimum, would possibly help her feel a little bit better about the situation.

Or not.